ERPs can help improve patient care

Healthcare professionals are keen to see the introduction of electronic patient records (ERPs), it has been suggested.

Computer Weekly blogger Adrian Bridgewater noted that many doctors believe the ERPs will help to bring about data management improvements to the sector.

Citing the recent International Data Management Healthcheck survey, Mr Bridgewater says that around 50 per cent of doctors believe the records will better patient care as they provide "verifiable, consistent and complete data to support verbal handovers between medical staff".

Earlier this month, a blog post on the CIO website claimed that healthcare providers need to ensure that they invest in database management initiatives to improve current systems.

It suggests that patient care can be improved simply by focussing on better information management and cutting down on data entry errors.

The International Data Management Healthcheck was a global survey looking into how hospitals should best manage, store and archive the growing volumes of electronic patient data.